


The Fell of Dark

by elistaire



Series: The Fell of Dark [1]
Category: Queen of Swords
Genre: Gen, Vampires, vampire bats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elistaire/pseuds/elistaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The children of Santa Helena are coming down with a mysterious illness.  Dr. Helm and Colonel Montoya sit vigil through the night to determine the source.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fell of Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beeej](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=beeej).



> Written as a Halloween story.

Dr. Robert Helm rubbed at his forehead and ached wearily to sit down. He had been on his feet all day, since dawn had broken across the sands that comprised Santa Elena, and he was near exhaustion. With a deep sigh, he looked outside his door to see how many patients he had left.

Amaia, a young mother, sat on a bench outside his office, her child dozing in her lap. She looked up at him, and he could read the worry on her face, and in the way she protected her son with her arms, forming an almost-barrier around him.

He raised a finger to his lips, indicating silence, and crouched down in front of Amaia. She stroked the hair on her small son's head and spoke in a soft voice. "He is burning. And can barely stay awake."

Helm took little Belén from her arms and cradled him, quickly looking him over. The tell-tale signs were there. Lethargy. Fever. A sallow color to the skin indicating anemia. And also, four small bumps at the base of his neck--similar to the bites of an insect, but so close together as to be suspect. Helm returned Belén to his mother and went back inside for some medicine.

"This will help to reduce the fever, but you must make sure that he eats. A meat broth, if possible. If he isn't feeling better by tomorrow night, come see me again."

"Thank you, Doctor," Amaia whispered and carried her child away.

Helm watched her walk down the street, and into the church.

"Another patient goes directly from your office and walks straight into the arms of God. Tsk. Tsk. They seem to be hedging all their bets, do they not?"

Helm cast a dour look at Col. Montoya. The man looked enviously well rested and collected as he paused in the shade of the building.

"I've just come by to get a report, Doctor." He motioned to the door. "Shall we?"

Helm motioned for Montoya to precede him, and they went inside. Since Montoya refused to sit, Helm decided to keep standing also, although he allowed himself to lean against his table and ease the taut and tired muscles in his lower back.

"You have been busy for days now, haven't you?" Montoya began, his gaze traveling around the small room. "Every time I looked, there was a line of mothers and children waiting to see you."

Helm nodded. "Yes. And all of them with similar symptoms. Lethargy. Sallow color. Fever." He pointed to the base of his own neck, to the hollow created where neck and collarbone met. "And four small bumps just here."

"Ah," Montoya replied. He paced the room slowly, pausing to glance out the window, and then turned his attention back to Helm. "I have heard the rumors, of course."

"We've all heard the rumors." Helm turned and started to clear away the mess that two dozen patients had caused during the course of the day.

"Ah, yes. The vampire." Montoya's voice was slightly mocking. "Preying on the little ones." Montoya picked up a phial from Helm's desk.

Helm reached over and took the phial from Montoya's hand, earning himself an amused half-smile. "Superstition." He tucked the phial away safely into a drawer. "No such thing as a vampire. It's a-- a--" He scrambled for an explanation. "A sickness. I've heard of such things as illnesses being carried by insects. Children are more prone to being bitten since they're closer to the ground, and also because they are smaller they become sick more easily."

"You and I are educated men, Doctor," Montoya told him. "We know these things to be reasonable explanations. And yet…."

"Yet what?"

"And yet," Montoya continued as if he'd never been interrupted, "I have been so very fortunate to be visited by several esteemed members of our community who are quite concerned about this sickness."

Helm sighed. "Children are still children, whether they are the Don's or those of the peasants."

Montoya inclined his head and again gave his amused smile. "The question then becomes, Doctor, what we can do about the situation. To allay the fears of the people."

"You're talking to the wrong man, Colonel. You should be over at the church." And, I should get to bed, Helm added silently to himself.

"Perhaps." Montoya began his slow pacing again, his fingers traveling over the glass jars that held the herbs and medicines that Helm used in his work. "Perhaps," he said again. "But the root of the problem would still remain, would it not?"

"You mean we need to make certain what is attacking the children."

"Ah!" Montoya raised his hand, palm up. "You do understand."

Helm finished clearing away the debris from the day's administering. He leaned against the back of the chair; his back was still stiff and aching, and he debated whether he should sit down while the Colonel still stood. "What exactly are you proposing?"

"A vigil."

Helm looked up, and his hopes for a restful night vanished. He sat down in the chair. "Tell me what you want."

~~~

"You had better be sure this is the right house to watch, Doctor."

"It's the best guess I could make." Helm tried to get comfortable and failed. The walls were hard, the floor was dirty, and there were no extra chairs or beds to be had. "Four children in the house, all of them affected. With good parents." He motioned to the door where the flickering of a light indicated a candle was still lit, and the shadow of an adult moving about could be seen. "I think we are not the only ones on vigil tonight."

"Yes, yes." Montoya did not look appeased. Helm guessed it was because they were not watching a Don's hacienda, which would have soothed the raw nerves of the fierce-tempered nobles. Still, this was the right choice. It was a small hut of a house which made it easy to observe, there were multiple children inside which made it a likely target, and the peasants were easily made to be agreeable in allowing Helm and Montoya to sit vigil, and soldiers to surround their home. A Don would not have stood for such scrutiny, no matter that their children were at the source of the need.

Helm look across the room to the pallet where the four children were sleeping. The night was peaceful so far, and the children had responded well to the medicine. Already their fevers had subsided. Helm tried to squint through the darkness at Montoya, but the man's expression was hidden. He wondered what the Colonel was thinking about. "You know, you didn't have to be the one to sit vigil," he finally said.

Montoya laughed lightly. "Ah, yes. And I would have Grisham sit up all night listening to the rats gnaw the crumbs?" He snorted. "Hardly. Or perhaps another soldier? They would be asleep before moon-rise and I would have no answers at sun-rise."

Helm grinned into the semi-darkness and both of them lapsed into silence. The floor was too hard, and the wall too rough to allow him any comfort, and even though he sagged with exhaustion, elusive sleep would not come. The few moments of true sleepiness were easy to fight off, and he concentrated on seeing into the darkness. Outside, the moon must have risen, because gradually the room grew lighter, although it was a wan and pale light nothing like dawn. Helm stared at the tousled heads of the four sleeping children and wondered if he should go over to see if there were indeed any insects, and what kind of insects they would be…large shiny-green ones, he thought, like the bright beetles in England, with membranous wings…large leathery wings that flapped and flapped….

Helm woke with a start. He hadn't even realized he'd been asleep. He blinked, and realized that the room was still translucent with moon-light and the four children were still swaddled in blankets on their pallet. It was almost as if a blanket of night lay over them, for he could barely make out their faces. Montoya must have let him sleep for a while, which was good. They should have arranged to take shifts from the beginning. Helm yawned and turned to look at Montoya, expecting to find that amused smile again.

Instead he saw that the Colonel had also fallen asleep.

Helm chuckled. That was the danger of working long, hard hours all day in the hot sun. Even dirty floors felt good to weary bones. He started to reach out to shake Montoya awake, when he realized that there was something on the Colonel's neck. He stared at it, his eyes trying to catch form, and his mind struggling to understand.

It was blacker than the night, and of a dark pitch so severe that it seemed as if the very place it existed in had a depth to it that went on to infinity, swallowing the world around it down into a near shapeless blob. Yet it was moving. Black against black resolved into lines and curves, and a slight fuzziness that Helm thought was fur, and suddenly he saw it.

Two pool-wells of eyes were there, and the snub-nose, and razor teeth that were fastened upon the neck of Montoya.

"Ah! Go! Yah!" Helm yelled incoherently, beating his hands against the creature. A flutter of leathery wings brushed his face, and the too-close squeal hurt his ears. Behind him, additional sounds of others taking to flight beat into the air, and more squeaks and clicks filled the room.

Montoya came awake with a roar, his own hands flailing into the darkness at the vanished creature, and to his neck where they came away with blood on his fingers, stained to a colorless glisten in the night.

The children were awake now, and crying for their mother. The parents frantically entered the room behind them, carrying candles that sent gruesome shapes across the walls.

Helm took a candle from one of the parents and held it close to Montoya's neck, inspecting the damage.

"Doctor?" Montoya asked calmly, his pale eyes reflecting the candle-light so that Helm could read no expression in them.

"Four marks," Helm said.

~~~

Dawn had just begun to tinge the farthest horizon, although the grey pre-dawn light had allowed them to follow the creatures back to the cave.

Helm rubbed at his eyes and then returned to staring into the grey sky. Swift, swooping movements drew his attention, although the creatures moved too fast for him to follow them individually. Like a cloud of night, they filled the grey sky now, too many to count, and all headed for one large ominous cave.

Montoya was mounted on his horse a short distance ahead of him. "The crops were plentiful this year, were they not, Doctor?"

"What?" Helm wished he could just go to bed. In a very short time he would have to return to his office, where people would already be gathering with their ills. He didn't have the energy to deal with the Colonel's riddles.

"So very many crops. A very good year."

"It was…." Helm frowned. It had been an exceptional year. The usual drought had not come. The crops had been good. The cattle had been easy to feed. Both sun and water had been plentiful, and in proportion. "Ah."

"Ah?" Montoya's smile was back, although now Helm would not have classified it as amused. No, it was rather grim this time.

"It wasn't just a good year for us, but a good year for things of the wild."

"Yes, Doctor." Montoya's grim smile didn't fade. "As we sat fat and happy with our fortunes, so did the flies, mosquitoes, and gnats…and the beasts that prey upon them. Only," Montoya raised a finger, then continued speaking, "when the summer cooled and it was no longer so plentiful, and the insects died and became less, there were too many beasts, and their bellies were empty."

"So they started looking for other sources of food." Helm finished Montoya's short lecture.

"Look." Montoya pointed to the dark mass in the sky. "Another moment and they will be gone."

Helm watched as the thickness that dominated the air above him vanished into the cave, like a fire giving off smoke, but in reverse. The soft sounds of thin-as-vellum wings moving and flapping above him grew less, and soon there was nothing left outside the entrance of the cave but a few stragglers.

Montoya motioned to his guard, and the fuses were set on the black powder kegs. "Five more minutes and our problems will have been solved," he said.

Helm watched, squinting when the brazen sun finally came across the horizon and made watching the process difficult. He thought perhaps he should protest, but he was too tired to think what he should be arguing about.

A moment later, it became too late to register a complaint. With a loud crack, the kegs exploded, and the mouth of the cave collapsed in on itself, rocks tumbling and cascading down like a waterfall. Clouds of dust rose into the air, hazing out the sun and turning it blood-red.

Helm fancied he could almost hear the bats scream in protest.

~~~

Deep in the earth, following down long winding tunnels and passageways formed through the rock by pressures and climate, and an endless supply of eons-slow dripping water, a figure sat up suddenly. Far above him, he heard their cries, and felt their fear.

He clenched his fists, and sobbed. "My children…."

And vowed revenge.


End file.
